


La Vie Est Ailleurs

by Galiko



Series: A Melting, Fading World [3]
Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: AU, Angst, Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-03-03
Packaged: 2017-12-04 03:36:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/706068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galiko/pseuds/Galiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fondu Au Noir side story. What Sphintus was doing over the past five years during FaN is something that never really got discussed (mostly courtesy of how he simply didn’t want to talk about what was happening in his country). This is a brief extrapolation of that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	La Vie Est Ailleurs

Sphintus doesn’t want to go home.

Years ago—months ago, even—he would have savored the idea of returning to Heliohapt, proud of his achievements as a student. His father had told him to do his best, after all, and even through everything (being dragged about by a Magi-apparent, a very strange Magi’s _child_ , and thrown nearly into war), Sphintus is pretty damned sure he’s done the best he possibly could have.

None of that matters now.

 

The only thing that matters is that when he returns home, he can  _heal_ , that he can help his family, and reading missives like that make Sphintus’s hands shake. His father—no, his entirely  _family_  doesn’t want to hear about his achievements. They just want to know if he’s strong enough, if he’s capable enough, and  _come home soon, we need you_. 

“You’ll visit Laem eventually, won’t you?” 

Sphintus forces a smile, though the droop of Kukulcan’s head on his shoulders betrays a little too much. “Yeah. I’ll visit you, Titus. Don’t worry.”

Five years pass.

The Kou Empire’s hold on Heliohapt is stronger than ever when he returns home, and during that time, it’s even worse. His sisters have taken to war in his absence (his brothers, a bitter memory, long dead when he could barely stand) and one of them, Acenith, his eldest sister, is a pressing matter as soon as he returns, having apparently just returned from what remains of their border front lines. From the way she’s locked away in the back of what remains of the royal palace—run-down, dirty stone, servants few and far between, his father and mother tired and wan—Sphintus thinks that she must be near  _death_.

That’s hardly the case.

“I don’t want a Kou bastard, I  _don’t_ ,” she pleads with him, heavy with child, tears streaking her pretty, pretty face (she always attracted all the foreign nobility with her looks, curvy and exotic and lovely), and Sphintus swallows hard, clutching tightly at her hands. 

“… It might be too far along. You might—”

“I tried everything while they had me captured. They wouldn’t  _let me_  get rid of it.” She stares up at him, desperation heavy in her bright, bright green gaze. “Please, Sphin,  _please_.”

Holding his dead nephew—nearly far along enough to have  _lived_ —in his hands is perhaps the worst thing Sphintus has ever had to do, and it leaves him shaking, dry heaving for well into the night afterwards. He leaves Kukulcan at his sister’s side, a comfort when he simply _can’t be_.

Compared to that,  _nothing_  is as awful. Nothing, not even the soft, apologetic words of his mother when she says he’ll have to keep very busy—he expects that, but what he doesn’t expect is the sheer amount of  _pestilence_  climbing over Heliohapt’s once-bright, airy streets. That isn’t even the part that he minds. He  _minds_  the work that he’s signed over to for foreigners, expected to pander to their every little whim and every little illness that they  _think_ they have. Trying to explain to them that there’s nothing wrong, that they’re all idiots and wasting their money would be stupid—Heliohapt  _needs_  their money—and so he panders away, wastes his magoi and his time and returns exhausted, day after day.

Quickly, he builds something of a reputation. A  _good_  healer, not an assassin like Heliohapt has had in the past, and for that, he’s proud. Not that such a reputation stops the  _offers_ , the whispered ideas of spreading illness amongst Kou’s troops, and every time he sees his father  _consider it_ , Sphintus feels sicker himself. 

 _I can’t, I_ can’t _, I’m not a murderer, isn’t that why you sent me away?_

_But if it’s for Heliohapt—if it would save the country, then…_

It isn’t an entire army that his father finally asks him to kill, but a single man, instead. A commander of one of the armies that lingers around Heliohapt and has now moved to block off one of their few remaining trade routes with Sindria, and it’s obvious that the man has been an issue before, by how his father can barely speak of him without wanting to put his fist through the nearest wall. 

“I wouldn’t ask this of you, if it wasn’t entirely necessary.”

“I know.”

“No one will ever know.”

“All right.”

Eventually,  _someone_ will know.

It’s an easy enough seed to plant when the man visits for ‘negotiations.’ The commander dies a week later, and his plans with him, spreading disorder and chaos amongst his troops that eventually retreat. There’s rejoicing in Heliohapt, though no praise for him except for a nod from his father, and for that, Sphintus is  _glad_.

Shortly after, he’s sent away to Laem—for security, his father says, and Sphintus believes it. There are probably rumors floating around, and he’s probably a target. 

He can’t even be happy about the thought of  _Titus_  with so much else resting heavily in his mind for the duration of the trip. 

_I should have stayed, I could have done more._

That fear of  _uselessness_  returns, stark and heavy in his mind, and can only hope, desperately hope, that there is honestly some  _use_  in him being here while the rest of his family is so far from  _safe_. 


End file.
